


The Definition Of Reasonable

by tielan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-05-30 22:56:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19413127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: "Where next?" She lets him lead her out and away before turning to look up at him. And the look growing in her eyes is the wide, bright mischief that promises as much chaos as a litter of leopard cubs let loose in the palace. "I know! Let's sneak into Stark Tower!""We are not sneaking into Stark Tower!"





	The Definition Of Reasonable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kinkobra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinkobra/gifts).



Shuri makes a cloaking device for him to wear so he can go out in the world again.

"It's set to a combination of factors, including your personal electromagnetic field and your biochemistry, and should hold enough to pass a reasonable inspection."

"Define reasonable," Bucky says, fingering the amulet that rests against his breastbone.

"Interrogation. Facial recognition programs. Probably not the new facial mapping that American intelligence is using to identify terrorists - those work on spatial mapping of features using radar, not on the visible light spectrum. I don't think I could do anything about spatial mapping, unless it was... Hm... " Her eyes unfocused for a few moments, before a smile grew on her lips - the smile that Bucky had learned to be wary of. "How do you feel about earrings?"

"No."

"The hills tribesmen wear earrings into battle."

"Do I look like a hills tribesman?" Bucky sees the calculating look in her eyes as she surveys him up and down and adds, "That's a 'no'." 

Shuri pouts, and maybe he's as besotted as Sam makes him out to be, but Bucky finds it charming. He leans over and coaxes her mouth into a more agreeable expression with his own. At first she leans into him, her hand curving over his shoulder as he slides an arm around her waist. Then her hand flattens against his pec and she nudges him back with a smile. "Are you trying to distract me?"

"Is it working?"

She nips at his mouth again, delightful and delighted, then pulls away. "I suppose this will do well enough to go out into the world again."

"So you're determined to kick me out of Wakanda, then?" He says it teasingly, already assured by T'Challa that he has a place here so long as Bucky wishes it, but Shuri stops in her tracks and looks at him.

"I'm determined that you will walk back in the world again! I'd prefer it were with your own face, but this will do for the time..."

Her protective ferocity touches him; a focus and defence that warms his deepest soul. He slides his hand down her arm, revelling in the touch, her skin cool and smooth under his palm. "Thank you."

The glance she shoots at him from under her lashes is a little wary but soon softens. "Well," she says, "I have self-interest at heart, too."

"Oh?" He leans back, resting his hands on the edge of the bench behind him. "How's that?"

* * *

Shuri smiles up at him as they stand in the sunlight amidst a crowd of other tourists looking at the Avengers Memorial in Central Park. "I don't think I've ever walked so freely in your country before."

Bucky looks around and can't shake the feeling that they're being watched. He has no reason to think that they are, nothing more than the many long years of being watched by HYDRA before being hunted by world security.

But nobody gives them more than the most cursory of looks, too busy going about their day. No-one around them has the subtle tension of a surveillance agent keeping an eye on a target who might turn on them at any moment.

"I haven't walked freely here for...a long time."

She squeezes his hand, her fingers laced with his. "Did you wish to go back?"

"No," he says immediately, because this is important to her - a trip that she wants to do; planned to do with him like they were some ordinary couple touring America, not Princess Shuri of Wakanda and Bucky Barnes, formerly the Winter Soldier. "I'll cope."

He can deal with the crowds around him; it's the concern for her that wears on him, even if he's not wearing his own face, even if there's no reason for him to be concerned. They've walked around all day without being recognized, even when their faces flashed up on the screens in Times Square - the announcement of their marriage sending ripples through the crowd.

He knows they don't look like themselves, but the publicity goes against all his instincts to stay down, out of sight, beneath the radar. Marrying the Wakandan Princess is pretty much the opposite of staying beneath the radar, and while he doesn't regret Shuri at all, he can't shake that the linking of her name with his makes her a target.

Not that Shuri seems to care. She leans into him, her body slim and warm against his, and Bucky wraps an arm around her waist and wonders how he got so lucky.

_Sure and you've had it coming after the last seventy years._

If that was the way the world worked then maybe he'd be easier with it, but Bucky finds himself still waiting for the other boot to drop.

"It doesn't look very much like them, does it?"

It takes Bucky a second to realize she's talking about the statues they're here to admire - the sculpted tableau of the Avengers fighting a cluster of Chitauri, weapons raised, muscles tensed, expressions intent. And she's right - it doesn't look very much like them. The sculptor was excellent at depicting movement and motion, but not at facial resemblance. Steve looks constipated, Stark looks like a drug lord, Romanov looks like an elf. Bucky doesn't know the other three well enough to be able to comment on the resemblance, but given the ones he knows, he doesn't figure they're doing too well in the resemblance stakes.

Not that it matters, one way or the other. The tourists are delighted by it, stepping in to take photos, making victory signs, interacting with the various statues in various ways.

But Bucky doesn't need to see this. He doesn't need to be a part of it. 

"Let's go," he says to Shuri.

"Where next?" She lets him lead her out and away before turning to look up at him. And the look growing in her eyes is the wide, bright mischief that promises as much chaos as a litter of leopard cubs let loose in the palace. "I know! Let's sneak into Stark Tower!"

"We are not sneaking into Stark Tower." The answer is automatic. Of all the people in the world, Tony Stark has one of the best reasons to hate him - hell, Bucky hates himself for killing Howard, for not recognising his old friend, even if he was brainwashed. And then for Stark to have it thrown in his face-

_He killed my mom._

There's a rawness there - the same rawness that Bucky saw in T'Challa as they faced off in the stairwell of the CIA office in Berlin. A beloved parent's death, and the agent of that death standing before them, within arm's reach.

Stark may not hate him anymore - the news out of Stark Industries by way of Maria Hill indicates that someone has helped Stark see reason on the matter of his parents' death - but Bucky doesn't have any idea how he's going to deal with Stark when the time finally comes. 

The best that he can do right now - the thing he's planning to do just as soon as he and Shuri return to Wakanda - is effect a reconciliation between Steve and Stark. Because he's not such a fool as to ignore Okoye, Maria Hill, and Pepper Potts - all of whom are pointing out that the rift between the two men is a dangerous gap in world security.

And Shuri thinks it's time. A man would be a fool to ignore three women with their fingers on the pulse of the world, as well as his own wife.

But there is no way in all the universe that he is going to be a party to stealing into Stark Tower.

* * *

Pepper Potts is all grace and stifled smiles as she sits back in the lounge with a glass of wine and rests her hand on Stark's knee like a physical restraint.

"Next time," Stark snarls from behind his glass of whiskey, "fucking well _call_ first!"

"Sorry," Shuri says, and while she sounds appropriately demure and contrite, Bucky knows perfectly well that she's laughing inside.


End file.
